Day Trippin

After sleeping late and having home made Egg McMuffins for breakfast, we went day trippin. Headed north to New Bern for a quick stop at Lowe's to get a gas hose for our Weber Q, Walgreens for drugs, and Starbuck for coffee for the day trippin. From New Bern we headed South on US 70 aiming for the southern part of the Outer Banks. Essentially we drove the perimeter of the 160,000 acre Croatan National Forest. We did stop in Havelock to visit Miller Saws and Supplies a Husqvarna dealer.  I am looking for a chain guard for Safe Harbor's chain saw. This store keeps weird hours. They are closed on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. I'll call them before going back out there.

 
As we continued our trek south, Carol notice the sky was getting smokey. Apparently the forestry service was executing a controlled burn. It must have been a pretty big burn. The smoke was thick and dark. It made us aware of the fires that burned through Texas last year.
   
We made a stop at Bestbuy in Morehead City so I could pickup a 300mm zoom lens for my camera belated. This is birthday present from Carol. I was looking forward to using it later in the day.

We were getting hungry so it was time to hunt for a place to grab a bite. We found Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant near the eastern end of town. Meal consisted of Fried Shrimp, Flounder, Oysters and Scallops. Food was excellent. Shrimp was smaller than what we would have gotten at Snoopy's in Corpus Christi but was just as tasty. Oysters were larger and very good. Flounder tasted like it was just caught and scallops where super. Only way to make this a better tasting meal was to have fresh cut fries. Sorry no photos here. While the food was really good and the ambience was on the water, we both agreed the food at Tony's yesterday was better.

It is time for us to head out to the Southern Outer Banks if we are going to get back home. We crossed the Atlantic Beach Bridge and headed West-Southwest on NC-58 for the 21 mile trip to Cedar Point. As we drove along, I kept waiting to see some of the atlantic ocean. Beach access is very restricted along the route. Instead of open space, the Outer bank is packed with residential and commercial housing for the entire 21 miles. This is certainly a sharp contrast to the open beach and generous beach access found along the Texas coast. Instead of seeing the Atlantic Ocean we saw front yards of some pretty fancy homes.

   

We did find a few public beach access like this.

   

We finally found a place to park where we could also access the beach. I took off down the stairs, through the soft sand of the dunes and finally arrived at the beach.

   

Finally,  I get to play with my new lens. First looking West-Soutwest then back the other direction. Both shots are zoomed out to 300mm.

   

For a stretch of 20 miles of 2-lane highway there are two bridges that access the mainland. I thought of the folks who evacuated when Hurricane Irene was about to make landfall. Traffic had to be horrendous.

We finally got back into Maysville. I wanted to stop for fuel but decide to to that tomorrow. There was a line at the one diesel pump. Our fur babies were glad to see us. We walked them and played ball with them. After resting on the front porch for a bit, we headed inside as the night time temperature was starting to drop again. Tuesday we have rain in the forecast. Carol has early doggie duty and I have to cut some olive oil barrels in half so we will have new planters on the farm. Then we need to make a trip to Lowe's for deck material.

Thanks for stopping by.